(TVBS)
(October 15, 2008) KMT Legislator Chiu Yi revealed to the press that
former president Chen Shui-bian had invited a tarot card reader.
According to Chiu Yi's narrative: "He was doing a reading with tarot cards
with a young tarot card reader. When Chen drew the card of death, his
face froze at first. Then his lips began to to quiver as his voice
trembled. When the tarot card began to explain the meaning of the card
of Death, Chen began to look more and more scared until he started to cry.
This showed that Chen is filled with fright right now."

Chiu Yi's description was so detailed and vivid (including
the tears in Chen's eyes) that it must have come the tarot card reader
himself. Who was he? Chu said: "I will only tell you when he tells
me that I can." DPP legislator Pan Meng-an said: "He did not see it
happen but he can describe it so vividly. He should go write stories."
DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying said: "Please don't ask me such a stupid question.
I don't want to comment on what this deranged person says."

Charlier Huang to whom Chen Shui-bian went for a tarot
card reading several days ago claims to be 20 years old and had studied in
England. But netizens at the PTT forum disclosed that he had just
graduated from the Taichung Municipal Chih Shan Junior High School two yeas
ago. He also worked at the Create Your Life magazine where he was
dismissed for stealing company money.

When interviewed by ETTV, Charlier Huang pulled out a
blurry photocopy of a British passport which he says showed that his name is
Charlier Huang and he was born in December 1985. He also refused to
say that former president Chen Shui-bian cried upon drawing the card of
Death. However, he also refused to deny that this ever happened.
According to the neighbor of Huang, Ah Bian came to Huang's workshop that
day and even asked for the elevator to be cleared for him because he did not
want anyone to see him coming for a tarot card reading.

When the news came out that the tarot card reader Charlier
Huang is only 20 years old, even Chiu Yi was surprised. The reporters
told him that netizens are saying that Huang graduated from junior high
school two yars ago. Chiu Yi said: "Impossible. Didn't you
interview him and see him in person? The main point is that Chen
Shui-bian went to see him, and not the age of Huang."

Interestingly, Chen Shui-bian's office has been monitoring
the media very closely and issuing daily bulletins to rebut this and that.
But in the matter of the tarot card reading, the office has only said that
it will not respond to these "gossip" news and thus neither confirmed nor
denied the case.

On October 6, the netizen 'slala' made a post titled <What
is so good about the BRT??? Who benefits???> at the Hualongxiang Forum
(note: a local forum for Changzhou city, Jiangsu province). On the
afternoon before yesterday, the Changzhou city mayor responded under the
netizen ID 'Citizen/mayor' by making a post at the same forum. He
wrote that "'slala' charged that the purpose of building the BRT was to
enrich myself and the government department heads. This is immoral.
This is libel against me using rumors. This shows no moral
character." He then wrote about his work over the past three years as
mayor. He ended by writing: "You can express your views about the
performances of the government and the mayor. I can even understand
and forgive the use of extreme language. But you cannot make up rumors
to libel people."

This quickly became the hottest topic in Changzhou, and
the story was played at the major national forums. Many netizens
praised the mayor for not invoking the force of the relevant government and
judicial departments against the rumor monger.

The Internet has led to economic development and social
progress, but it has also created problems for public figures including
government officials. On the Internet, information is transmitted
rapidly through complex channels. It is hard to determine the source
of the information. When the public cannot easily distinguish between
real and fake information, rumors can hurt people. There is an ancient
saying that three people together are as dangerous as one tiger. On
the Internet, the dissemination of rumors may be one hundred times or one
thousand times stronger than three persons.

We are no longer in an era where we used bamboo scrolls or
smoke signals to communicate. So how shall government officials deal
with unfavorable gossip (especially rumors) about themselves?
Recently, Changzhou mayor Wang Weicheng set a very good example.
Someone was spreading the rumor that his relatives were using his job
position and powers to enrich themselves, including many a great detail.
Given the present climate in which the public harbor serious doubts about
the ethics of government officials, this kind of rumor is quite damaging.
I believe that Mayor Wang had the ability to mobilize the police to
investigate, track down the source and detain him for rumor mongering.
But Mayor Wang did not do that. He used a regular netizen ID and made
a post at the Longcheng Teahouse Forum (Changzhou city) and rebutted the
rumors point by point. His action drew positive reviews from netizens,
one of whom wrote: "Ignoring the rights and wrongs for the moment.
Under the present circumstances, a mayor has chosen to respond publicly on
the Internet to the doubts raised by another netizens. His action
deserves our support."

[...]

The logic is clear. But some of these government
officials continue to rely on using their powers against Internet rumors.
Earlier this year, there was a popular Internet post in which an alleged
female university student complained that a certain Shaanxi department chief
was "lusty and corrupt." When I saw this post, my initial reaction was
that it was unreliable because the style was too exaggerated. But many
netizens preferred to believe it than not. The local police interceded
and determined that the post was plotted by a local businessman named Zhang
Shengli, who had sub-contracted an expressway but now the government is
taking it back. If Zhang Shengli manufactured a rumor to take revenge
against a department chief, he should bear legal responsibility.

The department chief could have acted like mayor Wang: "A
mayor is also a human, and his dignity should be protected under the law
too." He could have rebutted the Internet rumors point by point; next,
if he believed that his dignity has been insulted, he could lodge a
complaint with the relevant government departments to track down the source
and filed a libel lawsuit. Why couldn't a department chief use the
Internet to dispel the rumors or defend himself in court as a plaintiff?
But this particular department chief probably did not want to stoop down to
become a netizen or plaintiff and instead he used his official powers to
forcefully punished this "rumor monger." While this old and tried
method gave him some comfort, it did not have a positive effect on the
public relations crisis. Instead, the public gave greater credibility
to the "rumor" and the "rumor monger" obtained even broader public opinion
sympathy.

This department chief and mayor Wang are both "old
revolutionaries who faced new problems." But their crisis management
methods are diametrically opposite with completely different results.

[025] "The Six
Policemen Kicked Lin Songling For Five To Six Minutes" (10/20/2008)
(Beijing
News)

The investigation of the case of the "six Harbin policemen
beating a man to death" is ongoing. Yesterday afternoon, the
representatives of the Harbin public security bureau met with seven
relatives of the deceased person Lin Songling. During the meeting, the
complete surveillance video was shown. According to the father of Lin
Songling, the final portion showed five or six policemen kicked Songling
hard for at least five to six minutes.

Lin Jili, the father of Lin Songling, told the reporter
that the meeting went from 2pm to 4pm. During the meeting, they
watched the entire video surveillance tape, which was not the same as the
previously released video. The complete video lasted more than 20
minutes. It included Lin Songling being dragged out of the bar by the
police and five or six policemen surrounding Lin and kicking him hard.

According to the lawyer of the Lin family Wu Fengbin, the
two parties went to the bar after drinking alcohol elsewhere. The six
policemen and Lin Songling got into a fight. From the second half of
the video, the policemen were no longer defending themselves, but they
intentionally hurt Lin and caused his death.

After the meeting, the Lin family made a strong demand to
the police to air the entire videotape on local television in order to
restore the factual truth. The police declined on the basis that the
investigation is still ongoing. Lin Jili then requested to obtain a
copy of the video tape, but the police turned him down for the same reason.

According to laywer Wu Fengbin, two doctors with emergency
equipment waited outside the conference in case they were needed.
After watching the entire video, the parents of Lin Songling cried and
almost fainted.

According to the stepmother of Lin Songling, the police
has approached the family twice at their home and asked for a settlement.
The family declined twice. However, this assertion has not been
confirmed with the police.

According to Wu Fengqing, Harbin city vice mayor and
public security bureau director Wang Weixu took charge of the meeting and
agreed with the family that the six policemen "lacked self-restraint."
There were five talking points:

1. The police ought to have exercised greater
self-restraint;

2. The family should not believe in the Internet rumors
and they should not be used by other people with ulterior motives;

3. The police will not protect their own kind;

4. The police will not retaliate against the companions of
Lin Songling and they will not hold them responsible;

5. Communication ought to be maintained between the Lin
family and the police, and Wang Weixu give his personal mobile phone number.

[024] Collector's Item
(10/20/2008) (聞.見.思.錄)
In Hong Kong, this issue of National Geographic has been shrink-wrapped and
given the warning: "THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH MAY OFFEND AND MAY
NOT BE DISTRIBUTED, CIRCULATED, SOLD, HIRED, GIVEN, LENT, SHOWN, PLAYED OR
PROJECTED TO A PERSON UNDER THE AGE OF 18 YEARS."

[023] The Habitual Way
of Thinking about "The Police Killed Someone" (10/18/2008) (Wei
Yingjie at
My1510.cn)

There have been deep splits on the Internet over the brawl
in front of a certain bar in Harbin on the night of October 11. At
first, "public opinion" condemned the police who beat a man to death.
But once the identity of the deceased became known and the video (which
emphasized the provocative behavior of the deceased before his death) was
released, part of the "public opinion" became sympathetic to the police and
put the blame on the deceased who was alleged to be the son of a "senior
government official." The key is that the video had morphed the story
from "six policemen beat a university student to death in the street" into
"six prefects punched out 'government insider' Lin."

This type of situation is familiar. For some people,
the world has only two colors -- black or white; and there are two only
kinds of people -- good or bad. This type of monochromatic thinking is
prevalent on the Internet. For example, when several Beijing radio
hosts were arrested by the Prague police after a dispute with local
merchants, the Internet opinion was that these radio hosts were acting bossy
outside China and lost face for the nation instead. At other times,
whenever any Chinese get "mistreated" outside China, public opinion usually
rise to support national dignity.

If I have it right, then the logic of these people here is
this: When ordinary citizens get into trouble overseas, it must be because
the foreigners hold us in contempt. But these radio hosts are from a
"privileged class" so they deserved it when they get into trouble overseas.
The attitudes are diametrically different, but the singular idea of
"national dignity" does not change. The same thinking logic shows up
in the Harbin incident: When they see the headline that the police had
beaten someone to death, they automatically start condemning without even
bothering to read the contents. When they check again, they found out
that the police was assaulting the son of a senior government official.
So it must be the case that this son of a senior government official was
misbehaving again, except this time he ran into some tough characters.
They might as well as spell it out explicitly: The police are bad, but the
sons of senior government officials are even worse! Therefore, the
police deserve their sympathy.

The problem is just where did they develop this kind of
thinking that is so simple that it is scary? Why does this type of
expression dominate on the Internet?

I don't know if civic education has anything to do with
this. In our education, we do not learn to view the world from
different angles. Instead, we are instilled with the "standardized
answers." Our education do not train us to think independently.
Instead, we are forced to accept established precepts. You can see
that our children right now are living with various kinds of arrangements
and orders, such as learning social dances, doing long-distance running and
so on. If a person is no good at independent thinking, how can we
expect him to look at problems from multiple angles?

This may also be related to the "poverty of information."
Someone may wonder that since there is so such junk information on the
Internet nowadays, how can there be "poverty of information"? I really
want to say that there are too few channels for people to learn the truth.
In this incident, the netizens first saw the positioning and reports about
"the police beating someone to death." Then they saw the surveillance
videos. This means that there was insufficient information for people
to think and judge about the truth of the matter. [It should also be
pointed out the videos were incomplete, because the death of the university
students was not shown. How can it be like that? This is worth
thinking about.]

Of course, there must surely be many other reasons why
there are these "standardized ways of looking at the world."
Concerning the Harbin incident itself, we still need to wait for the truth.
Whether the attackers were police officers or the deceased was the son of a
senior government official is not the basis for determining guilt. The
renowned blogger Hecaitou posed a question: Does a volatile, belligerent,
ruthless, syphilis-infected no-good small-time hood deserve to die?
Conversely, should a non-corrupt, family-loving and public-caring police
officer be pardoned for murder? These are the kinds of problems that
people accustomed to thinking independently must grapple with. I am
just worried that people are totally unaware of them.

[022] The Family And
Friends Of Lin Songling Stand Up (10/18/2008) Over the last
couple of days, there had been a barrage of (mis)information about the
university student who died after a brawl with six Harbin policemen. A
favorite story is about the background of the family and friends of the
deceased Lin Songling. To repeat from yesterday's
comment:

The deceased Lin Songling was 22-years-old, 1.92m tall and
graduated as the class of 2004 at the Harbin Institute of Physical
Education, Department of Basketball. The human flesh search revealed
that he entered the institute by using money and graduated this August.
His family has procured a job for him at the provincial department of
treasury.

His father Lin Jili is a Harbin real estate mogul with
underworld connections.

His mother's brother Zou Xinsheng was the former Harbin
city Communist Party deputy secretary and is presently the chairman of the
Harbin Communist Party Political Consultative Conference.

His stepmother's brother Lu Xinshe is the vice-minister of
the State Land Resources Department and the director of the State Survey and
Mapping Bureau.

The father of his friend Che Liang who also took part in
the brawl with the six policemen is Che Junnan, who is the Heilongjiang
provincial procuratorate Communist Party Organizational Department deputy
secretary as well as the director of the Heilongjiang Anti-Corruption
Department.

These alleged connections have led to the new practice of
referring to Lin Songling as 林衙内 (= "government
insider" Lin). This is frequently accompanied by this annotated
photograph of a baby boy with a gangster-like tattoo.

"Lin Songling's maternal uncle is the chairman in Harbin
city ..." Over the past two days, there were very rumors about the
deceased and his families and relatives in the Harbin incident.
Someone even posted the "autopsy report" results on the Internet, although
our reporter verified with the Harbin public security bureau yesterday
afternoon that the autopsy had not been conducted yet. At the same
time, Lin Songling's father, stepmother and friend Che Liang have made
statements that they are not connected in any way to the so-called "senior
officials" named on the Internet.

Lin Songling's stepmother Ms. Guo told the reporter: "I am
the stepmother of Lin Songling. His true mother is the one who is
named Lu." Ms. Guo said that the only thing that is true is the father
and the true mother had been divorced.

Lin Songling's family said that Lin Songling had graduated
from the Institute of Physical Education this summer and he was about to
start work in November. But he was not going to the Civic Affairs
Bureau as reported on the Intenet. "He found this job on his own.
He had been working as a technical advisor at a gymnasium but the 400 RMB/month
pay was too low. So he was going to start working at the Jiacheng
Company to sell apartments in November."

As for the other two senior officials, Lin Jili said,
"They are not related in anyway with our family, and I don't k now them."
Ms. Guo said that there is a maternal uncle, "but he is just a private
entrepreneur."

At the same time, Lin Jili dispelled the rumor that he is
a real estate developer: "I began my career in the small-scale
retail/wholesale market down at Xiaolong Street. It was not a big
business. I only dealt with small merchandise items. I presently
have high blood pressure and a heart problem, so I am basically doing
nothing. I have not worked down at Xiaolong Street this year

"If we really have that kind of connection, we will
definitely not allow the public security bureau to publish that unfavorably
edited video tape." Yesterday at 21:30pm, Che Liang expressed his
skepticism about the published video to our reporter. "In the video,
the policeman who did the explanation said more than once that 'this was the
n-th time that our police officers were assaulted.' Why did he say
'we'? The n-th time that their police officers were assaulted?
What happened to the times that we got assaulted?"

Is the father of Che Liang a senior government official?
He said that there was once a department chief whose family name is Che, but
that was not his father. "My father arrived at the scene just past
10pm on the day of the incident. If he were really a department chief,
what do you think would happen?" Che Liang told the reporter that his
parents were "ordinary workers" and that his family was just an "ordinary
family in Harbin."

Through other channels, the reporter confirmed that there
had been a department chief named Che at the department named on the
Internet. This man has a son nicknamed "DuDu", who is tall and had
studied in England. But this man had left that government department a
long time ago.

Lin Jili said that the police have visited the family.
Concerning the autopsy, "I do not trust any organization inside Heilongjiang
province. They have to find a judicial organization outside the
province to conduct the autopsy." At the same time, Lin Jili
emphasized that "the video segment distributed on the Internet affects us.
So I demand that the police must allow the entire video be shown on
television before the autopsy is held."

[ESWN Comment: There have been some peculiar developments in
this case. The release of the edited video was followed by a barrage of
analyses and personal details. This is understandable from the viewpoint
of people trying to protect the Heilongjiang police. What is truly
peculiar here is that the price of this protection is to fan public dislike of
government officials with connections. And that is not harmonious
either. At some point, some higher authority (such as the Heijongjiang
provincial government or the central government) will have to step in and put
a stop to this (mis)information campaign.]

[021] How Many People
Do You Recognize In This Painting? (10/18/2008) (MOP)

[020] The Suicide Of A
Beichuan Government Official (10/18/2008) (yWeekend)

On October 3, Beichuan County party agricultural office
director Dong Yufei committed suicide. This drew attention to the
grassroots cadres in the Sichuan earthquake disaster zone.

The first to report the suicide was Tianfu Morning News
editor Dang Qing. During his interview with yWeekend, he said that
there were multiple reasons behind the suicide: his son died in the
earthquake, the pressure at work was great, he was mentally depressed "and
then the mudslide caused by the rainstorm of 9.24 destroyed his confidence
in the reconstruction." The continued series of natural disaster made
the disaster victims "unsure about how many times they will have to
reconstruct" at a site that has not even been chosen yet.

Here is the statement from Dang Qing:

The news about the suicide of Dong Yufei came from
Beichuan netizens. At past 8pm that night, I began to receive short
messages from Beichuan netizens: "Beichuan director Dong Yufei committed
suicide in his room." "A department-level cadre has committed
suicide. I called them back and they said, "I heard about this, but
I don't know the details." More than twenty people sent similar
short messages which were all very brief.

I arrived in Beichuan on May 16, and I spend more than
thirty days there in the disaster zone until the Tongjiashan lake was
emptied. I might be the reporter who spent the longest time there.
I still have a lot of raw materials which have yet to be published.
So I created a QQ blog called "Mourning Beichuan" in memory of this
episode of history.

The blog records the most common people and things
around the people of Beichuan, which drew their attention. Many of
them became my QQ pals and brought me into their Beichuan Group 1,
Beichuan Group 2 and so on, so that I could obtain more information.
I left my mobile phone number with some of the friends with whom I chatted
a lot. Therefore, they told me about the suicide of Dong Yufei
immediately.

I thought that this was a serious matter, and I ended my
vacation. On the next day (October 4), I went to Beichuan to
investigate. But the officials were hypersensitive about the suicide
of Dong Yufei. This is understandable, because Beichuan is a
homeless disaster area which has suffered terrible losses. State
leaders go there frequently, so that it has become a political symbol.
When the deceased is a county agricultural committee director as well as
disaster relief director, the investigation became very difficult.

My first blog post was comparatively short at 2,000
words. I made many inferences about why Tong Yufie committed
suicide. Some people said that he had been overwhelmed by the
sadness over losing his son in the earthquake. Other people said
that the work pressure was too great. These are all possible
reasons, but there is another situation that people outside of Beichuan
may not understand too well. This was the heavy rainstorm on
September 24.

On September 24, I was in Chengdu and that thunderstorm
came in the form of carpet bombing. This was the first time that I
had experience such a close series of thunderbolts, one every second or
two. Many people did not sleep that night. At the time, I felt
that the situation at Beichuan must be worse.

Indeed, that rainstorm triggered flash floods, mudslides
and hillside collapses. Part of old Beichuan county city was
swallowed by mud and rock. Half of the earthquake disaster zone
became a sea of mud. Many of the buildings such as the Beichuan
Middle School was hurried in mud.

For more than 100 days before, the Chinese people were
actively supporting the disaster zone to reconstruct. They felt that
they were making progress. But just as their confidence were getting
restored, this sudden rainstorm wiped out all their accomplishments.
The re-opened highway vanished instantly, many temporary housing bungalows
collapsed or are invaded by thick mud.

When I arrived there, many people were cleaning the mud
from their houses. "Just when we spotted a glimmer of hope,
everything is gone now." "Natural disasters come one after another.
When will it end? How many times do we have to reconstruct?"
Many villagers were saying so.

The grassroots cadres were very angry. They even
used some foul language that was inappropriate for their status, including
blaming the heavens for being unfair. Some cadres were sighing and
repeating, "What do do? What to do?" Some cadres were filled
with tears during the interviews. They looked disappointed and lost.

The rainstorm did not create as many casualties as
the earthquake, but it directly destroyed their confidence. After
the earthquake, many people cried over the losses of their homes and
relatives and their helplessness. After this rainstorm, they seemed
to run out of tears and become listless and indifferent. Some people
did not want to rebuild in the same locatoin.

From ordinary citizens to government officials, Beichuan
lost its initial confidence and became lost again ...

Dong Yufei was appointed the Beichuan agricultural
department director at a time when Beichuan needed to rebuild after the
earthquake. But this rare rainstorm dealt a fatal blow to
agriculture in Beichuan. Therefore, the pressure on him was not just
the normal reconstruction work after the earthquake but also the mudslide
after this rainstorm. Many people did not realize the impact of that
rainstorm on the disaster zone. At that time, people were focused on
the Sanlu milk powder affair and the Shenzhou 7 story. The news
reports from Beichuan did not receive enough attention. Even the
Sichuan media only made short reports on the road repairs and other relief
efforts. The people of Sichuan knew that the rainstorm was huge, but
they did not realize how bad it affected Beichuan and the mental state of
the people there.

On October 8, Southern Metropolis Daily and Huaxi
Metropolis Daily formally reported the suicide death of Dong Yufei.
Beichuan became the focus of attention once again.

[...]

[019] Sarah Palin's
Emails (10/17/2008) Ordinarily, I don't want to talk about
American politics. But this story is too bizarre.

Sarah Palin's office has discovered a renewable resource
to bring millions of dollars into Alaska's economy: the governor's e-mails.

The office of the Republican vice-presidential nominee has
quoted prices as high as $15 million for copies of state e-mails requested
by news organizations and citizens. No matter what the price, most of the
e-mails of Palin, her senior staff and other state employees won't be made
public until at least several weeks after the Nov. 4 presidential election,
her office told msnbc.com on Thursday.

How did the cost reach $15 million? Let's look at a
typical request. When the Associated Press asked for all state e-mails sent
to the governor's husband, Todd Palin, her office said it would take up to
six hours of a programmer's time to assemble the e-mail of just a single
state employee, then another two hours for "security" checks, and finally
five hours to search the e-mail for whatever word or topic the requestor is
seeking. At $73.87 an hour, that's $960.31 for a single e-mail account. And
there are 16,000 full-time state employees. The cost quoted to the AP:
$15,364,960.

And that's not including the copying costs. Although the
e-mails are stored electronically in Microsoft Outlook and on backup
servers, and although a blank CD-ROM costs only 41 cents at Capital Office
Supply in Juneau, the governor's office says it can provide copies only on
paper.

Why? Because lawyers need printouts so they can black out,
or "redact," private or exempted information. That task is more difficult
because Palin and her senior staff have used government e-mail accounts for
some personal correspondence, and personal e-mail accounts for much of their
government correspondence. The photocopies of those printouts will be a
relative bargain, only 10 cents a page. A state administrator said he
understood that such redaction could be done electronically, but that state
offices weren't set up to do that.

That process of deleting information is likely to be so
lengthy that most requestors won't be able to see the records until well
after the next president and vice president are chosen, Palin's office said.

E-mail sent between the governor's staff and their private
Yahoo e-mail accounts won't be collected until Oct. 31. Searches will take
an additional two weeks, until Nov. 14. And then the legal review of each
e-mail will begin. There's no telling how long that will take, because no
one knows how many e-mails there are, wrote Linda J. Perez, administrative
director for the governor, in a letter she sent to the state attorney
general seeking approval for a delay.

A small victory: Copies of the requests themselves
Msnbc.com did receive from the governor's office copies of all the public
records requests filed since she was inaugurated, and the replies from the
governor's office. Palin took office in December 2006, after seeking office
on a platform of clean and transparent government.

The price quotes reveal that Palin's office has repeatedly
tried to charge different news organizations the cost to reconstruct the
same e-mail accounts of the governor, her senior staff and other employees.
Each time an e-mail is requested, the office quotes the same cost of $960.31
for 13 hours to recover and search each employee's e-mails.

NBC's price quote for e-mails sent to Todd Palin: $15
million.

The AP's price for e-mails between state employees and the
campaign headquarters of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain:
$15 million.

And the AP again, for e-mails between state employees and
the National Park Service (on polar bears, wolves and other topics): $15
million.

The AP's news editor in Anchorage, Mark Thiessen, told
msnbc.com he wasn't authorized to say whether the AP, a nonprofit
cooperative owned by newspapers, planned to pay the $45 million for e-mails.

The employees in the governor's office have been polite
and responsive in fulfilling the request by msnbc.com for all the public
records requests and replies. The charge was only $37.70 for photocopies,
and the administrative coordinator, Michelle Fabrello, dashed out the door
to make sure the package got in the overnight mail delivery.

Palin's office hasn't always interpreted state law in
favor of public access. The Alaska law on public records does not require it
to charge any fee for public records, although a fee is allowed if the
processing would take five hours or more. The state law says all fees may be
waived if the information is used for a public purpose, such as journalism
or academic research.

But the governor and the Law Department have been waiving
fees only when they are just a few dollars. The state has not been granting
requests to waive the fees in the public interest, because it has not been
considering those requests.

September 26 was the birthday of a female worker at a
cultural publishing company and a party was held in the workers' dormitory.
A female employee named Jiang invited her boyfriend named Sun to to attend.
There were four women, five men, two cases of beer, a birthday cake and some
snacks. At around midnight, Sun left and returned to his own home.
On October 14, Sun was using his girlfriend's computer and found a folder
named "Sexy Photo Gate." He found many videos/photos of the company
workers (including his girlfriend) fondling each other and simulating sexual
intercourse. Sun made copies of the videos/photos and left.

On October 15, Sun showed the videos/photos to the
reporter. There were 5 videos and more than 80 photos. Sun said,
"Some of these photos are normal, but some are not." These people are
just co-workers and they are not romantically involved with each other.
Nevertheless, they were making disgusting acts such as breast-fondling and
kissing.

Sun explained: "The birthday girl is the one in the orange
shorts and the man on top of her is named Xia." Afterwards, Sun had
questioned them. "They said that they were just having fun. This
makes it even harder for me to imagine. That is why I want to provide
the information to the newspaper in order to explore this issue. I
want society to say whether this is right or wrong."

Yesterday the reporter went to visit this cultural
pbulsihing company. Apart from Xia, the reporter was able to interview
everybody involved. According to birthday girl Yang, "We drank a
little bit too much and we got rowdy. But we never crossed the bottom
line." "We were all art students and we tend to be more open. It
is not against the law to assume those positions. We only go crazy
occasionally." As the interview went on, Yang grew silent and
eventually began to cry.

Another participant named Wang said that there are a bout
a dozen employees at the publishing company and they all live in the
dormitory. "All of us arrived in Dongguan recently. We don't
know the place and we don't have much money. So we don't go out at
night. Most of the time, we stay home and play Internet games."
Since it was Yang's brithday, "we drank some alcohol, we got high and we
make some sexually suggestive poses. That is nothing strange. We
did not take off our clothes. We were fully clothed. We were
playing a game in which the losers have to make certain poses. That
was how it happened that night. Normally, we are quite regular."

The reporter asked: Since this is just a game, why
"punish" losers with making sexually suggestive poses? Yang said:
"Among our generation, how many of us have actually done this kind of stuff.
It is just that outsiders don't know about it." Yang emphasized
repeatedly that they did not break any laws and they don't feel that it was
wrong. "We were just having some fun."

Q. How do you feel about co-workers playing this kind of
game?
18%: Quite normal, as many people in our generation have done this before
55%: Sternly opposed because it goes past the moral bottom line
27%: So-so, it is understandable

Q. How do you feel about Mr. Sun exposing the video
without his girlfriend's permission?
27%: This is disgusting because it was clearly done in revenge
8%: His thinking is too out-dated
22%: The women deserves to be exposed
43%: Mr. Sun's action has caused a great impact on his girlfriend; the
punishment is disproportionately harsh

[017] How Big Is The
Army Of Fifty-Cent Gang? (10/17/2008) Even in the case of police
killer Yang Jia, there are netizens who consider him a folk hero. But
what about the case of The Police Beat A Harbin University Student To Death?
Initially, public opinion was completely against the six police officers.
Now, the tide is being turned the other way around. The following are
examples of Internet posts directed against the victim. Are these
authentic netizen voices? Or are they from fifty-cent gang members (i.e.
government-paid Internet commentators?) If the latter, then how big is
this army? Given their total domination of public opinion over the last
two days, they rule!

The family's demands are posted in front of the Harbin city
public security bureau

... 3. We have all seen the video. Whether it
has been "edited" or not as some people say, we all saw the following: the
deceased took off anything on him that might impede a fight; he picked
up a brick from the ground and waited until the other party come out before
rushing over to hit the policeman on the head. It was four against
six. Even though he was 1.92m tall, he had slim shoulders and legs and
it seemed that he is not guaranteed to win. The police did not
initiate anything, so it is not known whether they were conscious of their
own status or worried about the claim by the deceased that his uncle was a
big shot. On the video, we saw the police holding back until the brick
landed on the head. How many people would dare to challenge a group of
police officers while being outnumbered?

4. The deceased was a graduate from an Institute of
Physical Education and knew that he would be starting work at the Civic
Affairs Bureau (as reported by the television interview with family members)
several months before the official results of the civil servants entrance
exam are published. Putting aside our skepticism, we can only say that
the man is both brave and smart.

5. The father of the deceased has not shown his face
yet. We may speculate that he is not in town, or else he is dealing
with something more important so that he cannot take care of the funeral of
his son. But the family members were able to quickly demand the
appointment of the investigative unit and the participation at the autopsy,
which means that they are not small potatoes like ordinary people. The
rumor is that the father is a senior official at the procuratorate with a
family fortune in the tens of millions. We can only watch the show.

... The only thing normal about this case is that when a
man who has been exercise forbearance in spite of superiority in force gets
his head cracked by a brick, he was bound to retaliate unless he wants to
become a laughing stock.

1. The 22-year-old deceased was driving a Mercedes-Benz
(don't ask me how I know, but it is true).

2. He attacked with inferior numbers and used vicious
tactics. He knew that these were policemen but he was not afraid.

3. The family of the deceased could mobilize more than 100
people to block the Harbin Railroad Public Security Bureau.

4. The location of the incident was under the jurisdiction
of the Harbin Railroad Public Security Bureau, but the mother of the
deceased demanded that the local Public Security Bureau to take over.
The Heilongjiang provincial Public Security Bureau agreed immediately.
This is unthinkable ordinarily for such cases.

5. The family of the deceased wants to send their own
medical expert to participate in the autopsy. The Harbin Public
Security Bureau immediately agreed without even asking the Heilongjiang
provincial Public Security Bureau. This is a sharp contrast compared
to the death of the middle school girl in Weng'an (Guizhou).

6. At the Harbin press conference, it was announced that
the six police offices were arrested within 12 hours. They did not
turn themselves in voluntarily. This shows that the six already knew
something about the background of the deceased.

7. Most importantly, the father of the deceased has not
shown up yet. Under normal circumstances, how can a father sit on the
sideline when his son just died?

The deceased initiated many actions during the incident.
The first time, he kicked a police officer who tumbled down the stairs, and
he also kicked and punched another police officer. The second time, he
grabbed a police officer and threw him on the ground. The third time,
he took off his clothes, picked up a brick-like object from the ground and
hit a police officer on the head. The police grabbed his head and
looked hurt. Since the deceased was physically tall and strong, he
always held the advantage. He went after the policeman that he hit and
continued to punch him in the end. This caused the fight to escalate
until he was beaten to death by several police officers. The video
ended with the topless Lin Songling running away while still being chased.
The video did not show how Lin Songling died.

The autopsy report of Lin Songling came out just after
4:00pm. The autopsy was conducted by the Heilongjiang provincial
public security bureau's forensic team. According to the forensic
doctor, MDMA (known commonly under the nicknames of Ecstasy or 'head-wagging
pill') were found in the body of the deceased. The cause of death was
that the person had consumed Ecstasy, which led to sudden death by heart
failure.

At the beginning of this year, "very pornographic, very
violent" became the most popular Internet phrase after a young said it on
television with respect to a certain web page that she came across.
Soon came derivatives as "very silly, very naive" coming from actress
Gillian Chung about the photos that Edison Chen took of her. Very
soon, this was replaced by "I am just here to get some soy sauce" when a
citizen was interviewed about something which he would just as soon as not
comment on." This was later followed by "I am just doing push-ups"
derived from the Weng'an mass incident.

Yesterday, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported that
during the brawl between the policemen and the hoods in Harbin, the hood
picked a brick and hit a policeman in his head. The policeman said:
"Fuck your mother, you dare to hit me!" The hood replied: "Do you know
who my uncle is?"

We don't know who the uncle is yet, but that will be
revealed sooner or later. But I dare say that the phrase "Do you know
who my uncle is?" will become the newest Internet pop phrase.

The deceased Lin Songling was 22-years-old, 1.92m tall and
graduated as the class of 2004 at the Harbin Institute of Physical
Education, Department of Basketball. The human flesh search revealed
that he entered the institute by using money and graduated this August.
His family has procured a job for him at the provincial department of
treasury.

His father Lin Jili is a Harbin real estate mogul with
underworld connections.

His mother's brother Zou Xinsheng was the former Harbin
city Communist Party deputy secretary and is presently the chairman of the
Harbin Communist Party Political Consultative Conference.

His stepmother's brother Lu Xinshe is the vice-minister of
the State Land Resources Department and the director of the State Survey and
Mapping Bureau.

The father of his friend Che Liang who also took part in
the brawl with the six policemen is Che Junnan, who is the Heilongjiang
provincial procuratorate Communist Party Organizational Department deputy
secretary as well as the director of the Heilongjiang Anti-Corruption
Department.

If Hong Kong government officials had checked the Internet
discussion forums about Chief Executive Donald Tsang's policy speech, they
would have seen that the hottest subject is Legislator Raymond Wong Yuk-man
throwing a banana at Tsang. The YouTube excerpt accumulated 33,000
hits in one day.

... After Wong threw the banana, other pan-democrats said
privately that they also saw a bowl of eggs on Wong's desk. Therefore,
they believed that Wong had multiple options ready on that day. The
"light disturbance" was tossing the banana; the "heavy disturbance" was
tossing the eggs; the "most extreme disturbance" was tossing the eggs
towards the Chief Executive or the chairman Tsang Yok-sing. In the
end, Wong chose to toss the banana off the side and not directed at either.
This was clearly calculated to test the reaction of the Hong Kong people to
these types of extreme actions.

Yesterday, Wong emphasized that he did not intend to throw
the eggs. He said that he prepared the eggs to give to the Chief
Executive and that he tossed the banana to trigger discussions at a time
when the Legislative Council appears to be somnolent. The action may
arouse the citizens to become concerned about issues just as the
qualification test for the senior citizens' "fruit money" and hence crease a
culture of resistance. But some pan-democrats criticized the League of
Social Democrats for causing the Legislative Council to lose its "dignity."

Government officials are paying close attention to whether
the League of Social Democrats intend to import the physical protests used
by Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party during the early years.
Shortly after DPP founder Chu Kao-cheng was elected to the Taiwan parliament
in 1986, he charged the podium and broke the microphone. On April 7,
1988, when the parliament voted on the budget, Chu jumped on the podium to
wrestle with speaker Liu Kuo-tsai in order to stop the vote. This led
to legislators from all parties to rush up and began a brawl. From
that day on, many similar actions took place in parliament.

Yesterday, LSD legislator Chan Wai-yip pointed out that he
had planned to eggs and tomatoes at Secretary for Constitutional and
Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam Sui-lung two years ago in order to protest the
evasions with respect to the reform of the political system. Chan said
that his wife dissuaded him from doing that. He said that the
pan-democrats have failed to gain democracy over the past 20 years and
therefore a path of political resistance is necessary. He said that
this current action is a test of the bottom line for the citizens. The
temperature will be raised gradually, and the next government official to be
"target practice" may be Stephen Lam.

Government officials were unhappy about the action taken
by the League of Social Democrats. They wondered why chairman Tsang
Yok-sing permitted the three LSD legislators to interrupt repeatedly.
Some government officials point out that if they could throw a banana in
front of the Chief Executive, then other less senior officials can expect to
face even more extreme action.

For those who expect the Legislative Council to have more
rational discussions to seek solutions to social problems, the actions of
the League of Social Democrats is the most concrete evidence of the
deterioration of the Legislative Council. At this time, only social
opinion can reverse this situation.

[015] More Adventures in English (10/17/2008)
Newly elected Hong Kong Legislator Chan Hak-han (DAB) had gotten into trouble
with saying "massage our breast" when he meant to say "try out best" in
respond to a press question. On Albert Cheng's ATV talk show, he was
given a whole series of cards to read: "breast," "best" and "beast."
Chan was graded as "pass" after which Albert Cheng look out two lumps of
breads for Chan and his fellow newly elected Hong Kong legislator Starry Lee
(DAB).

[012] The Legend of
Bruce Lee (10/15/2008) (Sichuan
News Net) Because <The Legend of Bruce Lee> was heavily promoted
as an expensive television production, it received a great deal of scrutiny,
especially from the many fans of the martial arts idol. After only four
episodes, more than twenty defects have already been found. Here are
some examples:

Other defects include:

1. A man wearing the 2005-2006 home jerseys of the Arsenal
soccer team in a cha-cha dance competition

2. A bus using a liquid panel to indicate the route number

3. The story takes place in Hong Kong, but many of the
store signs are written in simplified Chinese characters

Former Bureau of Investigation director-general Yeh
Sheng-mao (葉盛茂) yesterday conceded to judges that he never informed State
Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) of the money-laundering allegations
involving the former first family. Yeh apologized five times for what he had
done and apologized to Chen.

“I admit that I said I had reported to him [Chen] because
I didn’t dare face the potential repercussions ahead of me,” he told a
Taipei District Court hearing when Judge Tseng Cheng-lung (曾正龍) encouraged
him to tell the truth to protect his own credibility. Yeh apologized five
times during the session.

The former bureau head was indicted for allegedly leaking
information in 2006 to then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) about tips the
bureau had received regarding possible money-laundering by the first family.

“Please do not tell me that you did not know that what you
did violated the law,” Tseng said. “Please, do yourself a favor. Tell the
truth to defend your name.”

Yeh told judges that Chen Shui-bian had said the money was used for secret
diplomatic missions. Yeh said he had to believe Chen Shui-bian because he
was the president. Yeh’s statement contradicted Chen Shui-bian’s account,
with the former president insisting he did not know about the wired funds
until January.

“I regret and feel sorry about all this. Ever since I was detained, I have
been asking myself how I could have been so naive,” Yeh told judges.

The more interesting detail is the method of persuasion used
by Judge Tseng Cheng-lung.

When the hearing began, Tseng Cheng-lung spent 30 minutes
telling Yeh Sheng-mao that Chen Shui-bian had stated in court on October 8
that the information provided by the Bureau of Investigation was wrong.
The reality was that the information was 100% accurate and gave Chen
Shui-bian's family time to transfer the overseas money.

Then the judge described two cartoons from United Daily
News to Yeh to persuade him to tell the truth.

In the first cartoon, Yeh Sheng-mao was presented as a pit
bull who chewed up Bureau of Investigation and the money-laundering case of
the Chen family. This meant that Yeh abetted in the money laundering,
as well as destroying the Bureau of Investigation.

In the second cartoon, Yeh Sheng-mao was a pit bull at the
feet of Chen Shui-bian, who asks, "If I don't believe in my wife Ah Chen, am
I supposed to believe my real dog Yung-ko or him (meaning Yeh Sheng-mao)!"

Tseng Cheng-lung told Yeh Sheng-mao: "You may be concerned
about other people, but they don't care about you!" The director of
the Bureau of Investigation is a law enforcement officer, who should be
loyal to the nation and the law and not be blindly loyal to a president.

[010] Three Hong Kong
Newspaper Front Pages (10/14/2008) At this moment in time, the
economy is expected to be the main theme. But still, how about that
Apple Daily front page!!

Regulators yesterday rejected
legislators' accusations that they had failed to monitor local banks selling
high-risk, Lehman Brothers-linked investment instruments to clients. "I
don't think these accusations are correct. [The blame for] failing to
monitor does not exist," Monetary Authority chief executive Joseph Yam Chi-kwong
said. He was speaking at a special Legislative Council meeting on the
troubles surrounding products related to the collapsed US investment bank as
investors facing heavy losses continued to call for their money back.

...

Mr Yam, who earned more than
HK$10 million last year, drew criticism from lawmaker Wong Yuk-man for
"sitting still to wait for a salary", while minibonds victims "sit still to
wait for death".

The comments "riled" the radical Raymond Wong from the
League of Social Democrats who accused Joseph Yam of holding an arrogant
attitude. "A salary for a national class treasure with an
international class laziness." Then he yelled aloud, "You sit waiting
for your bi (幣), which is the word for money! We sit waiting
for our bi (斃), which is the word for death!" This caused the
Lehman Brothers victims in the gallery to burst into applause. Yam
immediately put on an angry look and said that he would not comment on
Wong's comments. But Wong did not stop and he scolded the
"Johnny-come-lately" Yam: "This is your responsibility. It does not
mean that you were unaware beforehand. You were hired at such a salary
and you failed to even do this. You should go home and sleep!"

During the questioning session, legislator Raymond Wong of
the League of Social Democrats severely reprimanded Joseph Yam of the Money
Authority. With veins popping in his forehead, Wong charged Yam with
"sitting there waiting for his money" while the Lehman Brothers victims "can
only sit and wait to die." This immediately won a round of applause
from the Lehman Brothers victims. Unfortunately, after this round of
scolding, Raymond Wong could not even explain what he wanted to ask.
Chairwoman Lau Kin-yee asked him twice to state his question. Wong
could only say: "You ask him to reply to my comments." Yam who had
been sitting with his head bowed while trying to suppress his anger said
without needing to think: "I will not respond to the comments of
Legislator Wong." A simple sentence was enough to beat back Wong's
attack. Apart from allowing the principals to let off some steam, Wong
found out nothing on their behalf.

At 9am on August 3, the body of a woman was discovered in
the grassy area by the service road to the airport expressway in Beijing.
Based upon the condition of the body, police estimated that death occurred
in early July. Police had no clue about the identity of the woman,
since the DNA did not match any of the missing women in Beijing and there
were no identification. The lone possibility is a body tatoo with
three words.

As a first step, the militia police took the photo of the
tatoo and visited the more than 30 tatoo shops in the surrounding area.
No one recognized this tatoo. Based upon the fact that the words were
unevenly sized, it was believed that the tatoo job was not performed by a
professional.

There was also a question about the meaning of the three
words. The first word is a family name, but the other two words were
puzzling. The militia police went to the Information Center of the
Ministry of Education, which could not help. When the militia
police learned that the third word may be recognizable in certain areas
where local dialects still prevail in Guangdong, they went there. The
senior citizens there knew how to pronounce the word, but they did not know
what it meant. The militia police also visited the Beijing offices of
the Hubei and Guangxi provincial governments, which could not help either.

After more than two months of work with no result, this is
showing up as a news story. Hopefully, someone who knows these words
would read the story and contact the police.

According to Beijing Evening News, the audience sitting in
front of their television sets at 10pm on October 12 waiting to watch the
CCTV program <Dialogue> were surprised to find a program about Davos instead
of the earlier announced programme in which the leaders of three dairy
companies making a public mea culpa statement.

In the morning of October 12, the official Xinhua and CCTV
websies both featured prominently the news that "three dairy leaders will
meet on CCTV's <Dialogue> and make their first public apology together."
The news said that the leaders at Yili, Mengniu and Guangming will publicly
discuss "Milk Powder Gate" at the 10pm program <Dialogue> on CCTV 2.
The three would be drinking milk live and guarantee to the consumers that
the milk is presently safe to drink. Mengniu group sales president
Zhao Yuanhua was said to be so emotional that she cried ...

It was only right at the moment when <Dialogue> was coming
on air that the three guests in the program learned about the program
change. According to Mengniu group sales president Zhao Yuanhua, their
sales distributors were all sitting in front of their television sets to
watch the program. When they saw that the program was different than
announced, they called the company. "But I never received a call from
the CCTV program team." Yili Group Vice-President Jin Biao also found
out about the "content switch" only after the program came on air. The
Yili Group had even designed a new press publicity kit on the basis of this
program, so they had to change it.

At the CCTV website, the reporter saw that there were more
than a dozen questions posted after the program started at 10pm.
"Didn't you say that <Dialogue> would feature the three dairy company
leaders? Why did it become Davos instead?" "Why change the
program without explanation?"

Yesterday morning, the reporter called a <Dialogue>
reporter, who refused to pick up the telephone. The reporter then
called the program's telephone line, and a worker said that the program was
changed due to "equipment malfunction." But informed sources said that
<Dialogue> received the "directive" to change its program on the afternoon
of the day of the program.

Industry insiders believe that "equipment malfunction" was
just an excuse made by the program team. Such things do not occur at
most television stations, especially when the program content was announced
in the morning.

"At my age, I don't get sad easily or blindly.
Although it is hard, the boundaries are getting expanded." As the
author of <The Great Tangshan earthquake>, Qian Gang said that the media
environment today is different the time of the Tangshan earthquake. In
Tangshan, before saying how bad the disaster was, the media said that the
Part Central and Chairman Mao cared about the disaster area. Even as
disaster relief was taking place, they remembered to praise Chairman Mao.
Today, the news of the earthquake got out in twenty minutes' time and
Premier Wen Jiabao went out to the disaster area. There were also
detailed reports on the casualties and destruction on the buildings.

Qian Gang continued: "The first to identify the problem
with Sanlu milk powder was the reporter Jian Guangzhou, who said that he was
so nervous that he could not sleep the night before the report went out
because of the fear of a libel suit. Previously,the media in Hubei and
Gansu only referred to "a certain brand" in their reports! Qian Gang
said that the corporations are wealth and powerful, and no reporter can
afford to fight them. If the Premier of New Zealand had not asked the
Chinese government to withdraw the tainted milk powder, more mainland
Chinese infants would be still falling ill.

Although the Chinese government is publishing the number
of victimized infants, Qian Gang said that the mainland government has only
changed its approach but not the mentality. He said: "The party
secretary Gao Qiang at the Ministry of Health said last month: 'China is
paying a high degree attention to the kidney stone problem in babies and the
relevant authorities have begun an investigation as well as ask the Sanlu
Group to halt production and recall the tainted milk powder.' But if
you pay careful attention, you will see that if the state is really
concerned, it should be welcoming media investigations instead of avoiding
their questions."

He said that even after Sanlu was named, there are still
many unanswered questions. "Sanlu was selected among the top 500
corporations six years in a row, but there are serious quality issues with
its products. So how did the melamine get into the milk powder?
Is there something wrong with the process of choosing the top 500
corporations? Are the other brands okay? These questions await
reporters to conduct in-depth investigations."

Qian Gang believes that the Chinese government have become
smarter in how they deal with the media. In the past, the government
reacts only after a major event has occurred. Today, the government
knows how to hold press conference to release information. But they
have changed their control of the media. Cheng Yi-zhong was the
founder of Southern Metropolis Daily and Beijing News, and he was sent to
jail for offending a certain government official over the reporting of SARS
and Sun Zhigang. Today, Cheng is the executive publisher of <Sports
Illustrated> (Chinese edition), which published important news about the
earthquake.

"The Chinese media and the government are always gaming
each other. You can be fired at one media company, but you can
continue your work at another media company. Compared to thirty years
ago, the Chinese media have definitely improved by one hundred meters.
But on a daily basis, the movement may be measured only in millimeters.
But we should not worry about the slow progress. If we cannot advance
one hundred meters at a time, we will advance one meter at a time; if we
cannot advance one meter at a time, we will advance one inch at a time; if
we cannot advance one inch at a time, we will advance one millimeter at a
time."

As Qin Gang finished talking, the rain continued to fall
outside the window and the skies continued to be dark.

(TVBS)
Democratic Progressive Party Vice Secretary-General Chen Chi-mai made a public
appearance in Kaohsiung on the day before yesterday to express his support for
former President Chen Shui-bian. Democratic Progressive Party
Secretary-General Wang Tuoh could not stand the sight and made the public
comment that some members of the Democratic Progressive Party do not know
right from wrong anymore. Yesterday former president Chen Shuib-bian
addressed a rally of 1,000 supporters and referred to a certain Democratic
Progressive Party faction wanting him to be dead even worse than the
Nationalists did. Taipei city Democratic Progressive Party secretary
Huang Ching-lin shouted that Wang Tuoh must go.

(TVBS)
Today, Taipei city Democratic Progressive Party secretary Huang Ching-lin led
supporters to the headquarters of the Democratic Progressive Party to demand
the resignation of Secretary-General Wang Tuoh. He was received by
Democratic Progressive Party Vice Secretary-General Hung Yao-fu. The
conversation went as follows:

Huang Ching-lin: "We demand the ouster of Wang Tuoh!"
Hung Yao-fu: "Bian held his press conference on a Thursday. On Friday,
our Taipei city Democratic Progressive Party secretary Huang Ching-lin was the
first to advocate the expulsion of Chen Shui-bian."
Huang Ching-lin: "What are you talking about! What kind of rubbish did
you just say! When did I say that? If he does not apologize, I
will definitely sue him in court!"

(TVBS)
Previously, Cabinet Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan was roundly condemned
by legislators from the Democratic Progressive Party for characterizing their
party as a "violent party." Now it would turn out that there was
physical violence between pro-Bian supporters and DPP workers.
Democratic Progressive Party legislator Chen Chie-ru said: "What I saw on
television was not violence. I only saw some people pushing, shoving and
pulling at each other. There was no violence. I watched the
television. Therefore, i want to say here that there should not be
factions or condemnations within the party. Everybody should work hard
together and come together."
DPP propaganda director Cheng Wen-tsang said: "I ask all officials with the
Party Central not to participate in any pro-Bian or anti-Bian activity, and
also not to express their personal views. Among our supporters, people
hold different views on these issues. The point is that we should
tolerate each other in order to maintain party unity."

All this is happening because former president Chen
Shui-bian has been delivering some very astonishing remarks.

(TVBS)
The Democratic Progressive Party must get strong again. Someone must
lead. If no one is leading, Ah Bian is willing to lead.

(TVBS)
For the sake of his people of South Africa -- the black people -- Nelson
Mandela went to jail for 27 years. Twenty-seven years Mandela
re-appeared and he was elected as the first black president of South Africa
... I hope to see that after Ma Ying-jeou sends Ah Bian to prison, someday
Ah Bian shall re-appear and you will see Ah Bian again.

(ChinaNews.com)
When Sun Yat-sen started the revolution and built the Republic of China, he
solicited donations for a revolutionary fund. Where did he put the
money? Could he have left in China under the Qing dynasty? From
this, you can see whether money for the revolution can be left inside the
country? The overseas Chinese are the mothers of the revolution.
The same reasoning applies here. No, this shows that the money was
genuinely used for 'international diplomacy'."

(Apple
Daily) At the pro-Bian rally yesterday, former president Chen
Shui-bian wanted to say that "the new one was not as good as the old one"
when it comes to comparing himself against current president Ma Ying-jeou.
But he made an extraordinary choice of words: "「真是走了個滲尿的，卻來個滲屎的（台語，走了個漏尿的卻來了個拉屎的，意指愈來愈糟）。」(The
guy who pissed in his pants left but then came a guy who defecates in his
pants). The supporters clapped and cheered: "Right! Right!"

[004] The Most Awesome
Local Government Website (10/12/2008) (Modern Express via 163.com)

On October 9, the netizen "onewan" visited the website for the government
of Zayigang town, Hanshou county, Hunan province and was astonished by the
sight. This official government website looked like a personal web
page for a young boy or girl with plenty of flashing stars and floating
banners. So netizen "onewan" posted the hyperlink under the title "the
most awesome local government website" to the various Internet forums such
as Tianya. But many netizens harbored doubts about the authenticity of
this website, because it was so extraordinary. Some netizens thought
that this must be a spoof by someone. Other netizens thought that it
must have been hijacked by a hacker.

The reporter followed the hyperlink provided by "onewan" and landed on
the website of the government of Zayigang town, Hanshou county, Hunan
province. Unlike other conventional government websites, this one is a
sub-domain (meaning that it is nested within the website of a higher-level
government). The page design was very fancy, with a black background
and plenty of flashing colorful stars around. On the top of the page,
there is even a banner titled: "I am the most handsome guy in this town."
In addition, this government website was selling advertising space.

Based upon the content alone, there is some sign that this was a
government website. There were some public notices as well as options
about the government, the organizational structure, the projects, the
agricultural production, progress reports and contact information.

This website drew the attention of many netizens. Our reporter
observed that within a very short four-hour period, the number of hits
soared from 30,000 to 120,000. The comments that the netizens left on
the guestbook were mostly doubts about whether this was a real government
website.

The report noted that there was a telephone number for the web page
producer named Xiao. The reporter called the number and a man named
Xiao picked up the phone. Xiao said that he is a worker for the
Yazigang town government and he had produced the website. The reporter
told him about the netizen reaction. Xiao said :"I am just learning to
produce website. After I created this website, I showed it to the
leaders and they did not say anything. So you can say that this was an
authorized website! This website may be a bit too fancy, but I don't
know how to create something more serious. I did this website mainly
to practice. At the same time, it gives some publicity for our town
government."

Yazigang town is located in the northeastern part of Hanshou county,
Hunan province. The population is just over 25,000. To publicize
the place, the town government decided to enter the Internet era and created
a website in order to attract commercial investments. Since the town
lacked the money to outsource the website design, the assignment was given
to the only person named Xiao Tinghai in town who knew how to design web
pages. Unexpectedly, this created an Internet storm that indirectly
made Yazigang town known all over China.

Xiao Tinghai is a clerical worker with the Yazigang town government.
Only a few people in the whole town knows anything about computers, of which
Xiao is the only one who knows how to create web pages. More than
three months ago, upon the instruction of the relevant department, Xiao
Tinghai spent one month to learn how to create web pages. The initial
idea was to create a town government website to serve as the window/bridge
with the outside world.

But after the Yazigang town government website went online, it drew the
sarcasm, scorn and even abuse from the netizens. As a beginner, Xiao
Tinghai made use of many special effects under the belief that they look
better. Instead, netizens blasted the website for being more like a
teenager's personal web page or the result of a spoof.

With the rapid spread of the news, the Yazigang government website
quickly became known as the "most awesome government website in history" and
the screen capture of the home page appeared at all the major forums.

"In this town, I am the only person who knows a little bit about creating
web pages. I was learning as I was doing, and that is how it
happened." Xiao Tinghai said over the telephone. "I can say that
I tried my best. It took more than 20 days for me to upload the
information alone." Since the outside reviews were so bad, Xiao
Tinghai has shut down the Yazigang town government website for the moment.

But the "most awesome government website" ultimately received the free
assistance of an Internet company based in Changde city to develop a more
typical government website. Yesterday, the new website appeared.
At the same time, the netizen commentary also turned to self-reflection
about how most netizens living in the major cities do not appreciate the
hardships and lack of skills in rural areas!

[003] New Book About Eileen Chang
(10/11/2008) This is the updated edition of essays by Chuan Chih Kao.

The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences announced on October 8 that
Chinese-American scientist Roger Tsien and two others have won the 2008
Nobel Prize in Chemistry. As a scientist of Chinese origin, Tsien
hoped that his win would inspire young Chinese people. "Of course, I
hope that young people everywhere will be inspired, but I know that the
Chinese people will be proud of this."

Congratulations to another "Chinese person" winning "half a Nobel prize."
The reason for the quotation marks around "Chinese person" is that the
prize-winner does not possess People's Republic of China citizenship in the
political sense. Instead, he is a thorough "foreigner." As for
the "half," it is because his accomplishments took place outside of China
even though he is of Chinese descent.

Of course, for the reasons above, many Chinese people feel ambivalent
when they read similar news about the Nobel Prize. On one hand, it is
normal that they feel proud as Chinese that scientists of Chinese descent
are achieving global success. On the other hand, people would
logically ask: How come these accomplishments did not take place inside
China? How come Chinese scientists in China never win Nobels?

We often observe these kinds of deep concerns in China, which is still in
a transitional stage. As far as intelligence quotients are concerned,
the Chinese people are no worse than any other people. This point is
clear from the creations of the pre-Qin philosophers or the social
development and plethora of inventions during the Song dynasty.

Clearly, when people today want scientists inside China to win the Nobel
(as opposed to just a "half"), they are actually hoping for the Chinese
people to break through the heavy dust of history to see the sun again.
In other words, the "Nobel sentiment" is really the sentiment to
reinvigorate the creative spirit of the Chinese people. In this sense,
we should go back to the source of the problem rather than worry about why
the Chinese people could not win a Nobel prize. We should discuss how
the Chinese can re-establish the conditions to become creative. Only
when the Chinese people can achieve excellent results both inside and
outside of China will that sense of self-pride be authentic.

The purpose of the Nobel Prize is to praise human creativity and honor
the common values. At the same time, it should be admitted that
personal creativity cannot be measured by various prizes (including the
Nobel). In terms of political communication, prizes are just a means
of social control. Since antiquity, people have harbored doubts about
the love-hate relationship with prizes. In western philosophy, there
is the notion that "honors corrupt" because some people will use any means
possible to gain honor. I have often said "praises corrupt" for the
same reason as some people will seek praises above all else and forget that
the true reward should come from inside one's own heart. Many people
get immersed into a non-scientific evaluation process so that they abandon
their own independent personalities and creativity.

In discussing the accomplishments of the Chinese abroad, I am reminded of
a piece of history. Some years ago, Mr. Cheng Bao-yi told me about
what he went through after being elected as a member of the French Academy.
"I walk down the street and some French people would stop their cars just to
say hello. They said that they were happy and proud of me.
Later, I understood that there are two levels at which they are proud of me.
First of all, they were proud because their country accepted someone from
afar. Secondly, they were proud that their culture could absorb the
essence of a different culture brought over by someone else. I think
that the reason why a person or a culture is grand depends on the ability to
be open ... elevation and transcendence in life occur only through constant
exchange. If we stay inside our house and look at the mirror all the
time, we will never be able to transcend ourselves."

The humility and industriousness of Mr. Cheng Bao-yi have always moved me
immeasurably. Clearly, the most important thing for a talented and
creative person is to have an environment that allows him to create freely
and it is defintely not about which nationality he has. If what he
does is universally accepted by humanity, he will be able to nurture his
motherland through various channels. In this respect, if Chinese
society can become sufficiently open and tolerant, then the Chinese people
can allow their creativity to flow as well as let the people from elsewhere
in the world to create with us. Only then can China be called a truly
"grand nation."

Some people might say that the problem in China is that the creativity of
its own scientists and thinkers has not yet been unleashed, so isn't it
premature to speak of outsiders coming in? That is definitely a
problem that has to be faced. At the same time, we must admit that a
person's creativity is based upon the same pre-conditions, no matter whether
it is a homegrown Chinese person or a foreign immigrant and his descendants.
Whether a person will win a Nobel prize depends first and foremost on
whether he lives in an open country that encourages and protects creativity,
or a country in which "the academy is a bureaucracy" and "a higher ranked
bureaucrat is a better scholar."

At 10:30am on September 18, Tang Shanghai and his friend Chen Haijun took
the Chongqing-Hangzhou K531 train to Huaihua. At some time after 1am
on September 19, a train police officer began to inspect tickets.

According to Chen Haijun, the policeman saw that Tang Shanghai's mobile
phone was a similar model to his own and therefore turned the phone on and
checked its functions adroitly. But the policeman found a porn video
clip. "How come you have a porn video clip in your mobile phone?"
The policeman said loudly and the other passengers stared at Tang.

The policeman ordered Tang Shanghai to proceed to the dining car.
Tang kept explaining to the policeman that he was not the one who downloaded
that video. Rather, he bought a second-hand mobile phone on which the
4-minute porn video was already present. The police accused him of
copying and distributing the porn video and fined him 500 RMB, saying: "If
you don't pay the fine, I will hand you over to the local police station for
administrative detention."

Tang begged and begged until the policeman acceded to a 200 RMB fine.
Tang had to write a confession right there and then.

Yesterday afternoon, the reporter contacted Instructor Fang of the
Shanghai Railroad's Hangzhou Railroad Branch train police. "I handled
this matter personally," said Instructor Fang. He said that they
received the feedback from the passenger and asked the policeman on duty
about what happened. When they gave the explanation back to the
passenger, the latter appeared to understand.

"It was the high security period during the Olympics and the train police
have the right to inspect the mobile phones of passengers." He said
that Tang Shanghai used the mobile phone to copy and distribute pornographic
information via the Internet/telephone network. Based upon Article 68
of the <Public Safety Penal Code>, a fine of 200 RMB was appropriate.

In Chongqing, a man purchased a used mobile phone which contained a porn
video clip. On September 18, this man and his friend traveled to
Huaihua by train. When the train police from the Shanghai Railroad
Hangzhou Railroad Branch inspected the tickets, he opened the mobile phone
without permission and found this porn clip. A fine of 200 RMB was
issued on the grounds of distribution of a porn video.

Under the guise of cracking down pornography, some policemen can break
into private homes at night and they can inspect personal computers and
mobile phones without permission. That is frightening. If this
phenomenon is permitted to spread, why would be the result? After
inspecting the homes, mobile phones, computers and other personal items, the
next private space is the brain, heart and mind. If a passerby has
pornographic ideas inside his head, should he be arrested and displayed to
the public so that there is only pain left in his head with no spare room
for pornographic ideas?

"Report: There is pornography inside his head" -- this is not absurd.
The farther the authorities go in pursuit of monetary fines and the sense of
achievement, they will become more ridiculous. Is that anything
ridiculous that couldn't happen? Who can guarantee that this won't
become the next reason for imposing a fine? It is not that the law had
not set a limit on law enforcement powers. Rather, many law
enforcement officers ignored the law and violated rights and pursued
self-interests in the name of the law. That is the biggest tragedy in
an era under the rule of law.